Dear Edmond, It is most kind of you to lay out your system for teaching poetry with such clarity. I think your "crude instrument" complements well those by Helen Vendler, Robert Hass, and others that can be used to introduce a poem, and I look forward to trying it out in a class sometime. Certainly, an attention to words, words, words, and the spaces between words is a matter for either a savvy audience or one that has already been attuned to the complexities of a text and is now ready to deal with nuances and their nonetheless considerable impact. If you are not familiar with Robert Hass's essay "Listening and Making," you might find its identification of three stages of rhythmic patterning to be of interest. The poems you cite, which make heavy use of repetition and prominent display of rhythm, would fall into his first category, rhythms that mesmerize us and remove our power to act separately. Best wishes, Natalie (Gerber) -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edmond Wright Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 3:01 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: How to teach the reading of poetry Natalie, It is not 'words, words, words' that we must begin with but the fun of the rhythm and of the word-PLAY. Lots of rhythmical engagement with verse of all kinds where the rhythm is a dominant feature is the best place to start with younger (and older) pupils. There are many excellent anthologies of children's verse (and nonsense and whimsical verse) that can be mined for examples. I find rain-chants and war-chants go down well -- though I always keep them for the end of the lesson as they are hyper-excited by the time we have got the chants powerfully presented (the teacher in the next lesson can calm them down!) A good reading must be based on a thorough acquaintance with the text. One has to insist with older students that the poem has to be read through at least three or four times aloud before an understanding can even begin. The next step is to ask 'What is your first guess as to what this poem is about?', coupled with the reassurance that, just like a scientist, one has to begin with a rough hypothesis and then test it to see whether it will do. Once some brief guess had been suggested, they have to find something in the poem that appears to bear out that hypothesis. It doesn't matter whether the guess is 'right' or 'wrong': the important thing is to produce some part of the poem that seems to bear out the guess. Here I apply a crude instrument for ferreting out the meaning. They have to check that portion they have selected against the 'CRID grid' -- CRID being an acronym for 'Contrast, Rhythm, Imagery, Diction'. I say "Has the poet used any contrasts to bring out the point you have detected (any ironies, puns, paradoxes, antitheses, etc)? Any rhythm (alliteration, assonance, word-repetition, etc.)? Any image (metaphor, metonym). Is there anything unusual about the words that have been chosen (simple, sophisticated, Anglo-Saxon, Latinized, informal, formal, modern, old-fashioned -- a mixture)? Do any of these work together -- for example, is a contrast helped out by a balancing rhythm? Is there anywhere a contrast on the choice of words? Are any of the images standing in contrast?" By this time I say "Have you learned anything more about what you think the poet is trying to say?" and, in most cases, by this time, some refinement of the thought and feeling has emerged. I say that to them that they have 'improved their hypothesis', and now is the time to test it again, and so I ask them to find another place in the poem where this NEW hypothesis seems to be borne out. Once more, fortunately, it is not a case of being right or wrong about the interpretation, for that is what they are coming up with, THEIR individual interpretations, supported by evidence from the text. Helpful to ask "Any similar contrasts to what we found before? Any similar rhythms? Any similar images, or choice of words -- on any sharp contrasts to what we found before?" The students are well into following out the' hermeneutic circle', by which the text can be returned to again and again, producing a spiralling upward of understanding (which cannot be purely the teacher's understanding for what the students contribute can be novel and enlightening). The great thing is that teacher and students are engaged in a common process of discovery, and it is never the case that students are trying to guess what 'the right' interpretation is. I recommend that in writing on their own with a new poem that they always begin tentatively, saying 'At first glance, it would seem that the poet is trying to . . .' -- 'Let us see whether this guess can work as a key for us into the mystery'. You will see that this process can be repeated as long as is needed. What results is a gradual revelation of the poem's rhetorical force. What is bound to emerge is a better understanding of how to say the poem, where to pause, where to stress contrasts of words, where to link one's intonation in one part of the poem with that in another. One can't read poems successfully without having some grasp of what they are all about. Edmond Wright Dr. Edmond Wright 3 Boathouse Court Trafalgar Road Cambridge CB4 1DU England Email: [log in to unmask] Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33 Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/